WHOSE HOLY LAND?: THE ATTACK

WHOSE HOLY LAND?: THE ATTACK; U.S. Officials Tell of Getting Warning Last Month, but Say It Was Too Vague

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: October 14, 2000

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13—
The United States received a general warning of a possible attack on an American warship last month, senior defense officials said here today, but the warning lacked detail and did not specify the country in which to expect the attack.

''It was a question of how directly you could tie it to a certain place,'' one of the officials said. Since the warning, reported by an intelligence source in the Arab world, was not specific enough, ''it got put on the shelf.''

Nor was it clear that the warning could have stopped what officials described today as a sophisticated suicide bombing. While the Cole's crew had extensive training in repelling an overt attack by a small boat and even had extra sailors on watch on Thursday, the attack was so meticulously disguised and carried out that the officials said there was little the crew could have done to stop it.

But as new details emerged on the attack today, the developing American investigation focused on the Yemeni contractor hired to refuel American warships at the port in Aden, and on unsubstantiated claims of responsibility by two Islamic organizations, officials here said. At this point, they said, it is premature to speculate on who may have been responsible, noting that there were many suspects.

As the first teams of criminal investigators and experts arrived in Yemen, the officials said the contractor, whom they declined to identify, was the immediate focus because the harbor boat that exploded beside the Cole on Thursday, killing 17 sailors, had been taking part in routine refueling operations at the port.

It was not clear what, if any, security procedures were in place to screen the contractor, and officials attributed responsibility variously to military commanders in the region, the Pentagon's logistics agency and the American Embassy in Sana, the Yemeni capital. Officials declined to discuss the matter, saying it was being investigated.

A group called the Islamic Army of Aden claimed responsibility for the bombing, and officials said that while they had not yet confirmed the authenticity of the claim, they took it seriously. The group has been linked to terrorist attacks including the bombing of a hotel in Aden and the kidnapping of tourists, the officials said. A senior defense official said the claim was ''sort of elliptical,'' but another official who attended a classified briefing on Capitol Hill on Thursday night, said it appeared credible. ''It passes the straight-face test,'' the official said. ''This wasn't just a guy with a Web site.''

The Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, said today that officials had ordered a review of security procedures for refueling stops like the Cole's. In addition to the installation in Aden, American ships also regularly stop at a port outside Djibouti, officials said.

''Every tragedy like this provokes a period of reflection, and there will certainly be review and reflection after this one,'' Mr. Bacon said.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation began arriving in Yemen today, the first of them from the bureau's office in Cairo, and more were expected to pour in over the weekend. Officials said forensic examination of the damage, which will identify the type of explosives used, had already begun. Other agents were concentrating on who might have had access to the harbor boat, as well as on information about the Cole's brief stop in Aden.

Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said the Yemeni government had been notified of the visit 10 to 12 days in advance. A defense official said that by Wednesday, the day before the Cole arrived, it would have been widely expected in port.

''If you want fresh fruit or vegetables you have to tell people when to be on the pier,'' the official, who is involved in security operations overseas, said. ''If you want fuel, you have to tell people to be there.''

Navy weapons experts, along with divers examining the Cole's ravaged port side, determined that the explosion had torn into the ship with significant, apparently concentrated, force, underscoring the sophistication of the attack.

After an underwater inspection of the hull, officials said the damage had been more extensive than first reported. A defense official said the hole measured nearly 40 feet by 40 feet, much of it beneath the surface. One explosives expert said the blast had probably been caused by several hundred pounds of high explosives.

Christopher Ronay, a former F.B.I. explosives expert, said it was unlikely that the bomb makers had used the homemade chemistry of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil employed at the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 or at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. That is because the dry chemicals used in such explosives absorb water -- a factor that might preclude their use around water.

He said the bomb's composition was more likely to have been several hundred pounds of high explosives like PETN or TNT, or a combination of such compounds, which have been found in terrorist bombs exploded in the Middle East dating back to the attacks on the American Embassy and a military barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in the early 1980's.

Still, the officials said they had not ruled out any one of several other known terrorist groups, including followers of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile whom American officials blamed for the bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.